With the Windows version of the IDE now available, it is time to get the
user interface of it translated into more languages.
French and German can be done by us, but for the rest we need your help.
I want to setup a mailing list with people that can help with this on an ongoing basis.
(It will not be much work. You will just receive an email before a new PB release, with
the changes to the language files, that is all)
Everybody who wants to help on this is welcome, but also if you can only
do the translation this time, it will be usefull too.
We also require one native english-speaker to go over the english language file
and ensure it is correct. (Although my english is almost better than my german, there are still probably a lot of errors
)If you want to help on an onhgoing basis, please post here (so others know what language is talen care of)
and mail me at translations@freak1.de
The english language file is located in Catalogs\english.catalog in your purebasic dir.
Thanks to everybody who helps out.
Some Notes:
- the LanguageInfo section
In this section, you provide information about this language file. It will be displayed in the IDE Preferences,
when the user selects a new language.
Explanation of the fields:
Application : Must be set to "PB_IDE"
Language : Name of the language (this must be unique)
LastUpdated : date this file was last updated
Creator : Your name (you want some fame too, don't you
)Email : You can put an email here, so people can contact you about possible faults/problems with this file
(you do not need to provide this if you do not want to)
- the Language strings
The Language strings are devided into groups, and identified by a keyword.
Group names and keywords are case insensitive.
Inside the string values, names enclosed by "% %" are replaced inside the IDE and must remain in lowercase,
and of course not be translated.
Guidelines:
- Keep to common names
for items that are common to many applications (like the File menu) use the commonly used names, to make it easyer for new users
- Avoid special characters whenever possible
On Linux, some fonts have problems with special characters (ASCII > 127) and will simply leave the whole menu item field or gadget
empty if an unsupported character is included. So avoid such characters whenever possible. Of course for some languages it cannot
be avoided, but if it is possible, do not use them.
- Try to keep strings the same length as the english ones (or shorter)
The Gui is designed for the length of the english language strings, with extra space where it is possible, so try to
not make the strings much longer than the english ones.
Keep in mind, that on Linux, the default fonts might be wider than on windows (on my system, they are)
If in some places, the space for a translated string is really not enough, you can tell me that and
i will change the gui with a future update if possible.
- Test the file
Open the language in the IDE to see if the GUI looks ok. If possible, do so on Linux/Mac too.
To do so, put your file somewhere the Catalogs subdir of the PureBasic path, and re-open the Preferences
window in the IDE, the language should then appear in the language list
- Note for the one improving the english file:
The english language is always loaded from the IDE datasection, so while you work on the english file,
you need to change the "Language" field in the "LanguageInfo" group to something like "EnglishNew" and load that.
